It’s a windy day out there today. It has died down somewhat now and I expect the afternoon ferry will run but that will be the first one of the day. Even the ferries from Texada were cancelled. I have to admit though that the sun on the whitecaps on the ocean looked quite pretty when we drove home this morning.

We were out the door before eight with a list of things to do, and we didn’t get home until past noon. First stop was to get some breakfast at Julie’s Cafe at the airport – good breakfast at reasonable prices (and I got a fresh-from- the-oven cinnamon bun).

I think I’ve mentioned before that we are working on the workshop on Texada and we are at the stage where we need flooring. Pat purchased (at auction) a dance floor out of one of the hotels, but that covered less than half of what we needed. Pat had a line on some second-hand laminate from a person on Texada but he found a sale at Rona and we got new flooring and underlay for about the same price. Our carpenter will be happy as he said second-hand was okay so long as the tabs were still intact and we wouldn’t have been able to find that out until next weekend when Pat could see it first-hand.

I’m keen on getting the workshop finished as Pat suggested a new use for it. With lumber we have left over he thought he could get Trevor to build a workbench/table for me to use for sandwiching my quilts. Wouldn’t that be nice?

With that task taken care of we headed south of town to Dan and Judy’s. Dan is a luthier and he has been working on one of Pat’s guitars. We visited with them until almost noon and then stopped at Safeway on the way home; Pat needed a prescription filled and we picked up a few items that were on sale – coffee and cheez whiz were the important items!

We are having a by-election in town today. Fortunately the polling station is in the old library right across the street. There was a line-up when I arrived but I moved through relatively quickly. I barely expended any energy getting home as the wind was at my back.

The afternoon was spent working as well. Pat had a few phone visits and we were both taking calls regarding tickets for shows. I’m selling tickets for a Cranberry Hall show tomorrow night and Pat is selling tickets for the House Concert on Wednesday. When things settled a bit I did my cleaning for the first batch of performers who arrive tomorrow (two of the four will stay here).

Finally I have made my way upstairs and I hope to finish cutting the retreat project I started yesterday. There are two more projects I’d like to take with me; no doubt more than I will accomplish but I like to dream.

Friday, April 5, 2019

Thursday seems to be the day I most often miss posting. I always think I’ll have more time between events than I do and then I get rushed and posting gets pushed off the list.

I spent more time than I intended yesterday morning prepping some Splendid Sampler blocks to take to the Spring Retreat. I wrote my reports for the Guild meeting and then headed out to the yard to do a bit of work. I knew rain was coming and there were a few things I wanted done before it started.

I had a good sewing session in the afternoon but before heading off to that I had a few stops to make. I got our tax papers sent to the accountant and stopped at the library to return a book and pick another one up. Much to my surprise there were two books waiting for me.

I was busy packing up for the Guild meeting after supper and took one last look to see that I had everything. I realized I hadn’t bagged my gift for my Secret Pal so everything came out of the bag. I got my gift ready and headed downstairs, only to leave my reports laying on the ironing board. It wasn’t until I went to hand in my quilt show report that I realized what I had done.

There was very little follow-up to do from the meeting last night so I took care of that first thing. Then I spent some more time this morning prepping another project for the retreat. I’m way behind on my Blocks of the Month for the Guild; I’m equally as far behind on the second set of those blocks that I’m making for myself. Hopefully I can catch up at the retreat.

With the library books collecting on my bedside table (there are three of them) I decided I should spend the afternoon reading the book I started at the end of my weekend on Texada. Still a long way to go but I’m enjoying it; it has been raining all day and if it continues over the weekend I may get through it.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

I’ve been busy all day but almost nothing is completely done. I managed to finish a small card/gift but it didn’t turn out very well. I will consider re-making it at some point, but not today.

I trimmed the blocks that I made yesterday for my community quilt. In order to hang them on my design wall I had to take down my Thursday project. But that’s okay because I had to get things ready for tomorrow anyway.

One of my UFO challenges from last month was laying on the floor in the “other” room so I got that put away in a bin. I’ll take it with me to the Retreat in a couple of weeks. I thought I might get a few more of the clues printed and some fabric cut but that didn’t happen.

I brought back some cross-stitch blocks from Texada; my goal is to have fabric blocks and these cross-stitch blocks incorporated into a quilt. I had more cross stitching done than I remembered, but only one fabric block has been made. I spent some time drafting a couple of other blocks; I’m having trouble finding block patterns that match the cross-stitch patterns so I have to design my own. They won’t be a perfect match but they will be close enough.

I was tempted to sit and knit this afternoon; it’s a rainy day and I felt like relaxing. Instead, I dived in and got our income tax papers ready for the accountant. It took all afternoon but with it done I can cross another task off my list.

I’m going to spend the evening knitting and watching some Father Brown on Netflix.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

I started on the first of my April UFO Challenges at the bee today. It is a community quilt that I started last year. The Guild workshop was meant to teach us the accordion-style for making HSTs (Half-Square Triangles); I missed the workshop and never did figure out the way to do it. I do, however, know how to make HSTs in other ways and I managed to get quite a few of them done at a Community Quilt workshop later that year.

The pattern I was using was from a book that put smaller 2″ HSTs together with larger HSTs to form a pattern. I didn’t particularly like the way my scrappy version was turning out; maybe that is why it was set aside.

Not long ago I saw another setting on one of the blogs I follow. I liked her arrangement and when I saw that this project was my UFO for the month I decided to try it her way.

But I already had the larger HSTs sewn and I wanted to incorporate them into the quilt so I used a combination of the two patterns. I’m quite happy with it and I will enjoy spending a month of Tuesdays with the project.

Sometimes procrastination is a good thing.